September 7, 2006: Oreo’s First Day at Daycare

Happy 30th Birthday to Jonathan Stagno!!

Dominica didn’t have to get up quite so early this morning but she did have to be up by six. She took Oreo with her this morning so that he could be dropped off at Doggie Paradise in Wallington. It is a fairly new, high end dog daycare service with doggie cams so that you can watch the dogs during the day. Our dog is so spoiled you can’t even imagine. Today is his “test” day to see how well he fits in with the other dogs. If things go well today then we plan on him going to Doggie Paradise four times a week (just on the days when I am not working from home because I don’t want to be home if my dog isn’t there with me!)

Dominica accidentally stepped into dog doo while taking Oreo to day care this morning and ended up with it all over. Not the best way to start her second day at the office. She spent a long time trying to get it all cleaned up. She is not very happy about that.

Today, while using the restroom, I noticed a guy washing his ping-pong paddle in the middle of the morning. Everyone seems to take their ping-pong really seriously around here. I like to think that he was just back from playing a gruelling match and he was washing the blood off of his paddle.

Dad and Aunt Sharon are driving out to Ohio today. Originally I had planned on going out after work but with the move to Scranton this week that just isn’t going to be possible. I have been so busy that I am totally exhausted and I have a headache – not the best combination before going into a ten hour drive. So, unfortunately, I am going to have to pass on driving out for Uncle Bill’s funeral.

Today I am bringing you an extreme example of the mass media completely skewing its reporting to totally mislead you in the interpretation of its story. In ABC News today they cover the HP Boardroom shakeup and SEC investigation. In the story they say “Private investigators are accused of using the possibly illegal procedure of ‘pretexting’ — an investigative technique in which someone poses as another person to gain private information.” Um, an “investigative technique”? You have to be kidding me. Possibly illegal? In security and technology circles this “technique” is referred to as social engineering, the single most common form of cracking or hacking as the uneducated media often puts it. If this social engineering was done using any form of digital device, even if not in direct contact with the cracker involved, it would be a violation of the DMCA and could carry a massive felony charge. In fact, this EXACT event – social engineering or pre-texting – was considered so severe that the US government held Kevin Mitnick for four years without trial! Four years without trial or charge means that the constitution was suspended just for him (Clinton set the precendent for Bush on this one.) This is right up there with treason except treason has a legal punishment associated with it. Social engineering might get your shipped to Bush’s Romanian torture prison.

ABC News covers their tails only nominally by saying: “Pretexting, consumer groups say, is the same tactic used by identity thieves.” But they word this to make it sound as if the identity of the board member in question was not stolen. But it was. A person was paid to use social engineering (hacking, if you can’t use the correct terms) to steal personal information from a business for money. What part of this isn’t identity theft? The damage being done here is many times greater than simply stealing a credit card or emptying a savings account. Whole careers are on the line here and Disney’s ABC has the audacity to cover up for corporate criminals as if identity theft and cracking weren’t massive felonies. It’s okay when companies do it, ABC implies, but if an intelligent twelve year old bored with pointless homework does it we should ship them to Guantanamo Bay.

It is articles like this that show why mass media must fail. The point of this article was not to provide news, or opinion, but to put HP into the news, to give ABC writers something to do and to imbue a sense of corporate infalability into the consciencess of Americans. This is not news, it is propaganda. Tabloid. Yellow journalism.

I am tired of hearing so called “journalist” ranting and raving about the profession of “journalism” and how bloggers and other writers aren’t journalists because they don’t have a degree and didn’t pay someone acknowledged as a journalist to acknowledge them. They claim that only trained journalist have the ability to write unbiased news coverage. But as we can see there is little no journalism left. ABC News sure isn’t interested in hiring any.

Here is my quote for the day: “When the people chose the source of their own news, propaganda dies.” Basically, once media conglomorates and government agencies do not control access to news outlets (radio, television, etc. is a governed monopoly – just try starting your own radio station) and people are able to find real news, honest voices, obvious opinions they will be able to turn off the lies, the illusions and the engines that have long been propaganda will be silenced. Hopefully forever. ABC News is part of the proud tradition that skews the truth just like the papers in Nazi Germany and in WW2 Japan that told the populace to keep sending their children to the front because they were winning the war. Today it would be very difficult to keep up lies of this nature. The Internet is giving the world a voice and the world is listening. If ever we have had a weapon against war, it is now.

Okay, I am putting the soapbox away now. I was just really, really upset that they would dare to attempt to mislead people like that. At least now Google will link the story back here. Just to make sure that it is available, I am posting early today.

I spoke with Aunt Sharon at five this evening. She and dad were just driving through Canton, Ohio. So they have arrived safely.

I have two players signed up for the new Dungeons & Dragons game that I hope to start soon. Josh and I were hoping that Phil could play but he doesn’t have a fast Internet connection yet and that rules him out for now. Two players in and two more to go before we have enough for a game. I am really excited to try out RPTools in the game.

I managed to leave work at a quart to six and I hit the road to Scranton. The traffic on 78 in New Jersey was really bad and cost me a lot of time. I wasn’t expecting to hit bad traffic this evening. I stopped at the McDonald’s on 33 with the “50’s Decor” that Dominica likes to make fun of (they advertise the decor on their billboard.) I grabbed a quick dinner and ate it in the car on the way to Scranton.

Finding my way around Scranton was really easy and I could practically do it blindfolded now. I got right to the facility with no wrong turns or anything. I was really pleased. The equipment drop off went smooth and I was back on the road headed home by eight.

When I arrived home I found that Oreo and Dominica had all ready called it a day and had gone to bed. I checked my email and Oreo came out to visit. Then I just went in and read in bed until I fell asleep which didn’t take too long.

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